French naturalist and explorer M. Henri Mouhot (1826-1861) is credited for the rediscovery of Angkor Wat and the introduction of the temples to the western world. While on his Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-China (Siam), Cambodia and Laos During the Years 1858, 1859, and 1860 - the name of his two volume book published post-mortem in 1864 (which can be read here) - Henri was drawn towards visiting the lost temples of Angkor.
He wrote following in his journals about Angkor Wat:
One of these temples—a rival to that of Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michael Angelo—might take an honorable place beside our most beautiful buildings. It is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome, … At Ongcor, there are … ruins of such grandeur … that, at the first view, one is filled with profound admiration, and cannot but ask what has become of this powerful race, so civilized, so enlightened, the authors of these gigantic works?
The temple of Ongcor, the most beautiful and best preserved of all the remains, and which is also the first which presents itself to the eye of the traveller, making him forget all the fatigues of the journey, filling him with admiration and delight, such as would be experienced on finding a verdant oasis in the sandy desert. Suddenly, and as if by enchantment, he seems to be transported from barbarism to civilization, from profound darkness to light.
Following his captivating report the temples became known to western archeologists and not soon after French colonialists and explorers followed in his footsteps.
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